God has wrought for me, and say if I have not cause for joy. Let me remember what Christ has promised to be to me, now and hereafter. Let me consider what the blessed Spirit of God is willing to do to cleanse my poor sinful heart, and fill it with holy joy; thus let me seek to increase in this heavenly grace, not for the sake of the joy merely, but that it may be my strength in serving the Lord, and in glorifying Him before others.

NOVEMBER 19.

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath."-JAMES i. 19.

This is a difficult passage to expound, but the practical teaching in it is very plain; let me seek to enter into it for myself. When I am in the house of God, let me be "swift to hear." When God's people converse upon holy subjects, when holy books are read, or profitable and wise remarks are dropped, let me be "swift to hear;" may I seek to have the mind awake to every good impression from without, and not content with living upon my own stores of thought and opinion, may I be diligent in gaining wisdom from every outward source. Again, when the voice of conscience speaks, let me be "swift to hear;" it is perilous to trifle with its slightest warning. And let me be "swift to hear" when God speaks in his voice of providences; sudden alarms, dangers, sicknesses, death, have all voices of warning, reproof, or admonition, which I must be "swift to hear." The tongue is an unruly member, therefore I must be careful in the use of it, and, when tempted to rash utterances, I must be "slow to speak ;" not slow to speak words of kindness to others, or words of truth for God's service; not slow to speak, when I may do good by speaking, but when tempted to hasty and angry utterances, foolish or uncharitable words, vain or trifling words, then I must remember the wise apostle's law of silence, and be slow to speak. "Slow to wrath," how often the breath of words blows up the fire of wrath, and the anger which would have subsided if we had been silent, grows hot through our own warm words! Grant me a meek and lowly spirit, O Lord, then shall my ears receive wisdom, and my tongue utter words of grace and goodness!

NOVEMBER 20.

"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous."-HEB. xii. 11. Ah, how many a mourner has echoed these words from the depths of an aching heart! "not joyous but grievous, most grievous !" And it is a comfort to find that God's Word admits of our saying so, and does not command us to wear the stoic's unmoved look, and to deny what nature so loudly asserts. He knows our frame, and does not forbid us to weep; nay, rather, He would have us to feel when He chastens us, else it would be no chastening at all. But while He chastens He knows how to comfort; He tells the sufferer of a great good that is to come out of all this evil. He points to the seed of sorrow, as bringing forth the fruit of righteousness, "unto them which are exercised thereby," and thus He calls us, in the day of adversity,

to consider and see that we miss not the benefit designed for us. There is deep comfort in this verse; it touches the wounded heart with a tender yet faithful hand; it does not bid us rejoice now, when oppressed with the grievous chastening, but it leads us onward to the result, not now but afterward to be produced. God grant that such may be the fruit of all His dealings with

me!

"Then let our hearts no more despond,
Our hands be weak no more;
Still let us trust our Father's love,
His wisdom still adore.

NOVEMBER 21.

"For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."-Ps. li. 16, 17.

David, in his contrition, perceives and asserts the deep spirituality of the law of God; he sees that sacrifices and burnt-offerings are not what God desires. He must have the service of the heart-a heart broken for sin. And have I come thus before the holy and heart-searching God; or have I been content with offering those outward services which are indeed types of the spiritual worship, but can never supply the place of it? Oh, let me search and test my offerings of praise and sacrifices of whatever kind by this holy trial! "Thy commandment is exceeding broad" now as ever. Thou lookest not on outward appearance, but on the heart; and how often dost Thou behold, in the service of Thy house, many kneeling, but few, very few praying! Thanks be to God there is a Sacrifice by which the sins of His own people are for ever put away! May this thought make my sacrifice of praise a true thank-offering from a heart broken for sin and melted with Thy lovel

NOVEMBER 22.

"Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."-1 PET. i. 13.

We often find in the words of St. Peter, evident allusions to some precept of his Lord, elsewhere recorded, and it is so in the verses before us. He describes, as he had heard his Master describe it, the attitude in which servants who expect their Lord's coming, ought to be found; not in a careless indolent state, but watchful, hopeful, sober-minded. There are many who seem never to have the "loins of the mind" girt for earnest thought or serious work; they suffer themselves to be engrossed with every passing trifle, and forget that their minds, as well as their affections, ought to be engaged in the service of their Lord; this disposition to be carried away by passing excitements is the very opposite of the state here described; "be sober,"-sober in your estimates of earthly things, of characters, and of events going on around you, being neither unduly depressed need be no gloom in this sobriety, for a bright hope is nor elated with what shall so soon pass away; but there set before you; and it is even to make you "gird up the loins of your mind and be sober," that you are told to "hope to the end."

NOVEMBER 23.

"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not.”—JOHN i. 5.

It was given to the beloved disciple to declare the sublimest truths in the simplest words, and this text presents one of them to us; a little child may repeat it, but who can fathom its depths? who can tell how great is that Light, or how awful that darkness of which he here speaks? These words explain the secret of this not come and spoken unto them," says our Lord, "they world's woe, the rejection of that Light; for "if I had had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin;" men "loved darkness rather than light because all. His light has shined irresistibly into the darkness, their deeds were evil." Blessed be God, it is not so with and has banished the darkness from the minds of His own dear children; and if, through His grace, it is so with me, O let it be my constant care and endeavour to "walk in the light as He is in the light," keeping the eye of the soul fixed on Him, and following Him continually.

which had sprung from the teeming soil of Judea. The phrases * in which Tacitus, Suetonius, the younger Pliny, and others, speak of the Christians and their faith, significantly express the kind of estimate which was formed of them by the literary and philosophical classes of their day. It is singular and mournful to reflect that a man like Tacitus, of such deep and genuine moral feeling, and whose strain of "natural piety," in the close of his sketch of the life of his father-in-law Agricola, has many times drawn tears from the Christian-so simple, touching, and solemn is it—has nothing more to say of Christianity than that it was a "pestilent superstition;" and of Christian men that they were "convicted not so much of the crime of burning Rome, as of hatred to the human race." Nothing can more show the wide and hopeless gap which subsisted between the literary and philosophical culture of the time, and the infant Truth which was about to enter into conflict with it.

But while this was the general character of the relation between Christianity and Philosophy in the earliest ages, there were, even from the first, some exceptions to it. St. Paul himself was in some degree an exception to the rule which he enunciated. He could not indeed, and never claimed to be, a philosopher in the current sense; but he had been brought up "at the feet of Gamaliel," was learned in all the learning of the Jewish schools, and, at the same time, familiar with Greek literature and the tendencies of Greek thought, -as certain quotations in his Epistles, and his discourse at Athens, sufficiently show. In its conquest of the great apostle, therefore, Christianity may be said almost from its origin to have come into contact with a self-righteous and aspiring wisdom, and to have triumphed over it; and in the nature of things, this contact was one into which it must largely enter before it could fulfil its mission, and become a renewing power in the world of thought, no less than of action. It was well that at first the gospel should touch the lower levels of human life, and come as a welcoming greeting-"good tidings of great joy" -to many poor and miserable ones, the weak, and base, and despised of the world, wearied with its burdens, and sighing for relief from them; but it was necessary also that it should ascend, and lighten and purify the eminences of human opinion, and tinge with a new and transfiguring glory the widening horizon of mental and moral culture. It would have been less than the Truth if it had not thus proved itself a match for every phase of thought, and every element of human progress, and shown, that while it everywhere rejected and cast off the evil, it possessed points of attraction for all that is good and true in our nature; nay, contained within itself a deeper spring of solution than aught else for those hunting aspirations after the beautiful and the good, out of which the higher forms of literature and philosophy everywhere grow.

The subject of our present sketch may be said to be the first example of a Christian Philosopher. He marks the earliest clear point of connexion between

Exitiabilis superstitio, says Tacitus. Genus hominum superstitionis nova et maleficæ, says Suetonius. Malefici homines, says the Scholiast on Juvenal.

Christianity and Philosophy. A vain search after truth in the schools of Greece led him to the Gospel. Justin, known by uniform tradition as Justin Martyr-although he is characterized more by his philosophy than his martyrdom in an age when the latter was the fate of all Christians of any eminence -was born at Neapolis in Samaria, near the ancient Sichem. The year of his birth cannot be fixed; but tradition has asserted the third year of the second century, 103. His parents were Greek, and his father probably a man of some cultivation, who gave his son a philosophical education. Justin's own aspirations all turned in the direction of philosophy. Animated by its love, he travelled from city to city that he might learn its highest doctrines and lessons.

He has himself told us, in his Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, by what steps he advanced from one school of philosophy to another. At first the Stoics appeared to him to have the secret of wisdom; but a stoical teacher to whom he applied could give him no satisfaction concerning God "He neither knew himself about God, nor did he deem such knowledge of any consequence." He then betook himself to a Peripatetic philosopher, a man sufficiently acute in his own estimation. But he, welcoming him at first, soon discovered so much anxiety as to the amount of payment he was to receive for his instruction, that Justin left him, convinced that he could be no real philosopher. His mind still burning to know the power and excellence of philosophy, he next went to a celebrated Pythagorean, and explained his eager desire to become a disciple. The Pythagorean met him with the inquiry, as to whether he knew music, and astronomy, and geometry; it was hopeless for him to aspire to the knowledge of the Blessed Life unless he had first learned those things which help to withdraw the mind from the things of sense, and fitted for the perceptions of mental realities, and the intuition of the beautiful and the good. And having expounded at length the necessity and value of these preliminary acquirements, he dismissed the youthful aspirant until he should make himself master of them. This he confesses greatly discouraged him, especially as he conceived that the Pythagorean really knew something of the knowledge after which he sought. In his dilemma, and unable to defer the satisfaction of his spiritual cravings till he had mastered so many sciences, he had recourse to the Platonists, whose fame was not inferior to that of any of the schools. In this application he was more successful than in any of the others. An excellent Platonic teacher had recently come to his city,* under whose tuition he placed himself, and made daily progress. Especially the study of ideas and the apprehension of supersensual realities seemed to give wings to his mind, and he fancied himself within a short space of time to have attained to wisdom, and, in comparison with his previous stupidity, to have come near to the hope of seeing God, which was the end of the Platonic philosophy.

In this mood he courted solitude, and sought to elevate his soul by quiet reflection in long and

*The most probable conjecture is that Justin was now staying at Ephesus.

meditative walks. One day he was wandering by the sea-shore when he saw a venerable man of grave and earnest appearance approaching him. Struck by meeting one of such serious and majestic aspect in so solitary a place, he fixed his eyes upon him, upon which the old man inquired if he knew him. This commenced a conversation between them, in which Justin was led to explain his love for solitude, his studies in philosophy, and his desire of knowing God. He spoke warmly in the praise of his favourite philosophy. It was the highest and most excellent employment for man; all other things were only of secondary importance. They received indeed a lustre from philosophy when joined to it, but without it they were poor and contemptible. It was man's only guide to right reason and conduct. "Philosophy, therefore, constitutes happiness?" the old man inquired. Assuredly, was the answer; and on being asked to explain the nature of philosophy and of happiness, Philosophy," Justin said, "is the Science of Being and the knowledge of the Truth, and Happiness is the appropriation of this science and wisdom." "What of God then, and how do you define Him?" the stranger further asked. "God is the Eternal Being, who is the same always, the cause of all things, and the reason why they exist," Justin replied; and the stranger willingly listened to him, and continued the conversation. He questioned him closely as to the nature of the knowledge of God which he professed, and by what means it was acquired. Justin explained that it came not by sensible observation, but by inward contemplation through the spirit alone.* This was the doctrine of Plato to which he adhered. "But did this spirit, according to the Platonic doc trine, not inform all living beings, and the world itself; and did such living beings as horses and asses, see God as well?" inquired the stranger. "No, truly," was Justin's reply: "for not even were the multitude or common race of men (oi Tool) endowed with this perception, but only those who had lived righteously, having purified themselves by the cultivation of rectitude and every virtue." "It was not therefore," said the stranger," the mere kindred relation of spirit, but the moral conditions of temperance and righteousness that constituted the key to the knowledge of God!"

So the argument proceeds between the two ;the Platonic doctrines of metempsychosis, and the immortality of the soul are discussed, and their unsatisfactoriness proved. Justin's faith in his favourite Platonism is shaken, and he is led to ask -"On what teacher can we rely, or to what quarter can we look for aid, if these are not the doctrines that contain the truth?" Then his venerable companion turns his attention to the Hebrew Prophets as wiser and more ancient philosophers than those of Greece, having been inspired by the Divine Spirit, and having prophesied of the future he declares they have both seen the truth and announced it to men, neither fearing nor being ashamed of any; not overcome by vain glory, but merely speaking what things they had heard and seen under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Their writings still remain,

* οὐκ ὀφθαλμοῖς . . . ἀλλὰ μόνῳ τῷ.

in which any one who has faith may read more of the first principles and designs of things, such as philosophers profess to learn, than he will find elsewhere." Justin is exhorted to consider their miracles, how they serve to glorify God and announce the mission of His Son, in contrast to the lying wonders by which false prophets have sought to draw men to the worship of demons. "Before all," the old man urged, pray Christ that the gates of light may be opened to you, for these things can only be seen and understood by those to whom God and Christ give understanding." Such was the conversion of Justin from Platonism to Christianity. His honest search after truth had conducted him to the Cross of Christ. In Him of whom the Prophets had spoken he found that wisdom of God after which he had been seeking. The student of the Porch and the Academy of the Pythagoreans and the Peripatetics at length found refuge here. The ideals which in Plato had ravished his intellectual sight, "given wings" to his aspiring thoughts, and seemed to him for a while the last expression of the truth, were, by him as by many others since, at length found to be revealed in Christ, the Fountain of light and the Archetype of all life and beauty. In Him were seen hid the treasures of all wisdom and the source of all happi

ness.

We have no means of following minutely the life of Justin. He is supposed, upon good authority, to have devoted himself after his conversion to the work of an itinerant evangelist. He considered himself under obligation to propagate the Truth in which he himself had found such satisfaction and blessing. He says expressly, that "every one who is able to speak the Truth, and does not speak, will be condemned of God."* In assuming the function of an evangelist, however, he did not cease to be a philosopher. He continued to wear the pallium, or philosophical cloak, in order to show that, as a Christian, he was still a friend of philosophy,-nay, that he was more than ever a lover and disciple of wisdom, although no longer of that of the schools, but of that which came down from heaven. He travelled, as had been his wont, from place to place, teaching and learning, and without accepting any fixed office in the church. In the course of his journeys he became acquainted with all the varied forms in which the Christian life showed itself, and in which Christian truth acted upon different individuals and societies: and a profound conviction of the universality of the Gospel, and its free power of adaptation to every aspect of human culture was thus implanted in him, and elevated into a glowing enthusiasm, to which he gives frequent expression.

He is supposed to have visited almost every considerable Christian community of the time. In Egypt, in the Isle of Pharos, near Alexandria, he gazed upon the remains of the cells in which the Seventy Interpreters, according to the sacred legend, separately, and yet with a perfect accordance, translated into Greek the books of the Old Testament. The dialogue with Trypho-from whose introduction we have quoted the account of his conversion-is conjectured to have been held at

*Dial. c. Tr. c. 82.